Sunday, July 15, 2007

Bizarre night at the Chevron today. It started out with unusual good. One customer returned to the store just to let us know that the wind had blown our milk crates all over the driveway on the side of the building. Even more surprising was Coppenhagen Guy. I know I've mentioned him before, but he was a really arrogant customer that kept coming in even after accusing us of lying about our backstock of Coppenhagen. He used to walk in and demand, as he walked past the counter to the drink fountain, "Give me 3 rolls of Coppenhagen pouches". Didn't matter if we were helping someone already or not. Well, today he comes in, waits in line and when his turn comes up asks, politely, "Could I get 3 rolls of Coppenhagen pouches, please." I almost plotzed. We didn't have any rolls left, so he asked about our singles. Didn't complain about their date or that we only had 4 rolls. Just said he'd take them all and then thanked me once the sale was done. I was amazed.

The Bad:

The fates that were smiling on us in the beginning of the evening quit smiling halfway through the night. There's nothing more depressing than having someone prove that there was a basis for a stereotype. Taxi Drivers. In general when they come in to the Chevron they're gruff, demanding and not very friendly. This one comes in today (City Cab #21, for the record), comes up to the counter with a soda and mumbles something. I ask him what he wanted and he mumbles again. So I lean closer to hear him better and he gets all pissy. Loudly says "Grizzly Mint" and then gets on my case about not being able to hear him because I'm so close. I tried to explain that I was close because he was being so quiet, but he just keeps going on about me not being able to hear him. I stop talking, figure if I say something it's going to be something I wouldn't want to print here, and he's a jerk so it won't help anyways, so what the hell. Take his money, give him his change, bag his crap up and hand it to him. Then he says something about how I need to go get earplugs (how the hell are earplugs supposed to make me hear better?). I look him straight in the face and say "bye" turn to the next customer, put on a big friendly smile and ask "how are you doing tonight?"

The Ugly:

Nothing specific, but there's no way we went a whole night without someone ugly coming in.

4 comments:

your annoying guy story amused me.I am lately annoyed by a couple of different people in one of my classes who comment a lot about nothing. Their additions to the discussions in class show a fair lack of understanding, yet they insist on saying it over and over in a lengthy manner.Then there's this sixty-something guy I keep running into during mealtimes. He's a genius in his own mind. He treats us all to long lectures of his knowledge of various topics at each meal. sigh.

Ahh, I love the people who know and have done everything. We had a couple of them working graveyard shift at the Chevron. One of them gave up a career as a cop to work graveyards at the Chevron because being a cop wasn't rewarding enough. The other one had been a head chef at a 5 star restaurant, owned his own flower business and probably been in the CIA or FBI, but I stopped listening to his stories. Anyway - you should pay good attention to lecture-guy, he might have something important to say, or some good stand-up material.

Oh, I shut him up last night when he was going off on how statistically Costa Rica has a better surgical survival rate than the US and how he'd go there for surgery.I interrupted him and asked if he knew anyone personally who'd had surgery there. He admitted he did not. I told him I have a native Costa Rican friend who went there for surgery (tummy tuck) because it was so much cheaper. He asked how it went. I answered, "One word: gangrene." Then I got up and left. It was great.